January 6

A president dies and the U.S. highway system is proposed.

Jan. 6, 1919: Theodore Roosevelt, considered by many to be the first and greatest conservationist president, dies at Oyster Bay, N.Y.

Jan. 6, 1955: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposes the creation of a new Interstate Highway System in his annual State of the Union Address.

Jan. 6, 2009: U.S. President George W. Bush declares three marine protected areas in the Pacific. Commercial fishing and mining, and some recreational fishing, would be off-limits around Rose Atoll near American Samoa; the Line Islands in the Central Pacific; and an area of the Northern Mariana Islands that includes the Marianas Trench, the deepest ocean area in the world. The three areas total nearly 200,000 square miles.